The Times, They Are A-Changin'
by great-big-little-panther
Summary: Based on my PJO SYOC. Welcome to the 60s (and 70s).
1. White Walls

**White Walls**

_December 1968_

Obed Sherry was nervous.

That phenomena in itself could have become cause for alarm as Obed was never nervous. Not to say he was ever particularly calm. He was a tangled bundle of pent up energy, an eternal whirlwind with no signs of slowing. He was a legend among the residents of Camp Half Blood, talked about as much as the Pile of Shit (otherwise known as Zeus' Fist) and the campers were as wary of him as the cleaning harpies (though, for entirely different reasons). He was known to be many things, but never nervous.

As he walked, bare feet crunching against the white shit on the ground, he observed the somewhat halted camp commotion from the corners of his eyes as he rubbed his hands against his arms in a feeble attempt to ward off the chilling breeze. A breeze which brought forth mounds of snow and ice across the camp, glinting against the sun like a winter wonderland. A sight beautiful to many.

Obed really hated winter (yet, he hated Euterpe even more so) and couldn't fathom how and why letting Camp Half Blood freeze once a year, every year, was good for anyone. Nothing about winter was appealing to him. The Apollo Pléon-Aristos Choir singing "Carol of the Bells" thirty times a day got old back in '28. The "Snow Battles of Death" between Hermes and Ares was borderline dangerous, even for him. The constant chatter of who was gonna get 'x' amount of people 'x' amount of presents kept him up at night. Euterpe yodeling Christmas carols like a feminine Swiss goat herder every morning...It really wasn't his time of the year.

He turned around eyeing a camper. The kid, Son of Hermes William O'Neal apparently, paused his arm wrestle with an Ares camper, Calliope Mahelona, to give him a grin and a thumbs up with his idle hand before screaming as Callie used his momentary distraction to win. In any other case, Obed might've found that hilarious, but he was still nervous and couldn't think of any reason William would give him a thumbs up. He was pretty sure the redhead hated him. For one thing or another. He wasn't sure.

He entered the Big House, relief flooding him at the feeling of warm air, jumped every three steps up the stairs, and knocked on the door of Chiron's office.

Not even five seconds later, the door opened, interrupting Obed's thoughts on the anatomy of a centaur and how fast they needed to be to be able to make it across the room and around the pile of texts and yellowing ancient scrolls he noticed as he peered inside.

"Hey, Mr. C!" he said with a mock salute.

Mr. C, or "Chiron" as he preferred to be called, gave a fatherly smile, if a little strained, reaching to his old brown eyes followed shortly by a grimace. Obed wasn't sure if it was a result of the pile of texts and yellowing ancient scrolls which gradually increased in number (like an unstable Tower of Paperwork) or how the song on Chiron's record player switched with a loud screech from Frank Sinatra's "Spring is Here" to the the Beatles "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", a band he still hadn't gotten around to liking, and probably never would considering campers try to recreate their songs by using lyres and flutes or whatever else the Apollo cabin had lying around.

"Hello, Obed," he stepped back, waving his hand in a "come in, come in" gesture.

As Obed walked in, nearly tripping over a pile of paper that had just appeared in front of the door. He gave a low whistle, taking in the rest of Chiron's office.

Having been in the camp director's office before, he was now pretty sure to totally positive that the pile of scrolls completely covered where his desk used to be. The wooden floor itself was no longer visible; to walk was like to wade in shin high water. Then he realized why the lights must have been so dim. The day, sunny and bright, should have shone through a window. However, the window wasn't in sight and that avalanche waiting to happen most certainly hadn't existed before where it should've been.

"Excuse the Early Germanic, Mr. C," Obed started, grabbing a handful of papers a foot off the ground. He watched as it curiously crumpled and fell to ash, vanishing as it did. "But what the fuck happened to your office?"

He heard Chiron sigh from behind him. He couldn't be positive if the sigh was directed at the clutter or at him for cursing. If the latter was the case, he supposed eighty years as a camper still made him a kid in the eyes of a centaur older than the Roman Empire.

"Not even I know everything," Chiron answered, his attention completely on the state of his office to Obed's relief. "But," he swept his hand over his desk, clearing it in one clean motion. "It would be safe to attest it to the Athena and Hermes cabin partnership."

"Yeah," Obed rubbed the back of his head, his fingers getting tangled in the tangled black mess he called hair. He thought back on the Athena and Hermes partnership among the half-bloods. They teamed up in everything, from strategic activities to dangerous practical jokes and he wasn't really sure how long it had been going on or if he had anything to do with it.

"You did," Chiron responded to the statement he didn't think he spoke out loud.

"Ah." Well, if Obed did that, then there's no telling what else he had done before his latest annoying bout of amnesia. "Why'd I do that again?"

Turning around, he raised his eyebrows and suppressed a laugh at the site of Mr. C doing one of the most mundane things he'd ever seen. Mr. C had conjured a broom out of nowhere and was sweeping. That there was something.

"You told Adam Anthonys that his cabin would be better off if they took more risks and that Felix Hardgrave's cabin would be better off if they incorporated more of a "strategic procedure to their endeavors"." The floor cleared up around all four of Chiron's feet before quickly reappearing and double the size. Chiron shouted something in turn. A little ancient Greek something about where the Beatles' beloved Desmond and Molly Jones should go and how they should get there.

He took a deep breath before walking through the pile of paper currently his height. "Did you need something important?" His voice was a higher pitch than normal and Obed never thought that Mr. C could get any more stressed out than that major incident with the centaur's extended family came to visit unprecedented for three months in the spring '63. And yet, here he was.

"Well," Obed started, his fingers ripping larger holes in the pockets of his jeans, fiddling as much as they were, "I was wondering-"

"You were wondering about the television set." He said it like he knew about the discussion of it around camp.

Course he did.

"And it's hip and everything if you say no," he added before Mr. C could reject it, "but we were all kinda hopin' you'd let us watch the greatest achievement of mankind in human history on the live Nightly News, y'know?"

Word had spread among the camp, word that came from the campers who left during the school year. Of course, the latest news about the latest music and the vinyl to prove it, or such news like how the Apollo 8 crew were planning to orbit around the moon. And damn it all if he were going to miss that. Even if it meant leaving the camp for a few days, an action he hadn't dared follow through with all the years he'd lived there.

"Obed, son," Mr. C said softly, sweeping the floor in futility. "You were speaking out loud again."

Obed cursed inwardly.

"And as for the greatest achievement in all human history, I'd have to say the completely human Wilbur and Orville Wright are the winners of that prize."

Obed groaned. "They didn't record that. _And, _there wasn't a single TV in existence back then even if they could."

"There are reasons that we don't use such technology inside these camp walls, Obed. I am not the one who created the rules. They're only in place to keep all of you safe."

Obed raised an eyebrow. "Besides learning the ins and outs of spilling guts."

Chiron mumbled in agreement. It was a constant between them, debating what technology would make it into the camp as the years turned into decades. It was by constant suggestion that the record player made it in. Chiron, however, had stood steadfast against the idea of including a television set to it.

"Yeah, so, what if monsters are already attracted to the smell of our blood and having a big TV broadcasting our scent far and wide isn't the smartest decision?" Chiron allowed a chuckle at that. "Why don't we just plate it with bronze or something? Wouldn't _that _work, old man?" He had hung around the Hephaestus cabin long enough to know the pros and cons to many types of metals although they mostly went in one ear and out the other. After time, he came up with the bright idea that if celestial bronze was that toxic to monsters, it only made sense if it kept them away.

"I have to admit, I hadn't thought about that," Chiron, rubbing his chin. Obed understood that tone as meaning "Of _course_ I've thought of that". "However, if you and the campers are so pressed on this, an Iris Message to Hermes would be a matter to take care of…"

Obed nodded, a large smile growing across his face. "Yeah?"

"...And possibly a room to put it in as it most certainly won't be added to my office..."

"Right on, Mr. C." Obed was practically jumping on his heels at the moment.

"But this clutter, this _hex_ of some kind, would need to be considered before any other action takes place Not to mention that unauthorized construction of a flaming rock wall. What were you thinking, Obed?"

"Awww," Obed whined, although it was more for an immature dramatic effect. The nerves were gone, his fingers dancing widely across his folded arms, and now the TV set was a possibility.

Yet, looking around, he wasn't sure where to begin fixing this.

"I'll be right back," he promised as he ran through a six-foot high stack of paper and out the door. Exiting the Big House, he made a show of bowing before the eager and waiting campers before jumping with a yell of triumph. He felt a slight pang in his chest as finally recognizing why everyone had been watching him before and William had given him a thumbs up. Earlier that day, he said he would try to make a deal with Mr. C. Shortly after he forgot.

_Damn this mind_, he thought, gathering the Athena and Hermes kids into a huddle. He informed them about what was to happen and how they would do it. He assigned the Athena campers with de-hexing Mr. C's office while the Hermes campers were to, sadly, dismantle the flaming rock wall. For now, at least.

He Iris Messaged Hermes about the conversation with the Camp Director. In a few hours, the state of Chiron's office was restored to something respectable and the TV was delivered. As the night fell, the setting sun painting the sky red and gold, all were gathered inside an unused storage room of the Big House crowded around the television set, practically sitting on top of one another.

Obed stood at the back of the room leaning against its white walls. He, and everyone else (except the resident cynic, Harriet Yew, who blurted this was all staged and everyone _knew_ that this was just a way to make the Commies feel bad) held their breath while they heard the astronauts recite passages from the Bible. Passages Obed could remember his mother reciting to them as if it was the best bedtime story of all time (although Obed personally preferred stories about daring adventure).

That memory, however, seemed to provoke a crack in the wall of his mind allowing other memories to slip through. Memories tended to give him a headache and he didn't need a headache during this program of all times.

It wasn't until people stumbled out in a ruckus of shouting and yawning into the moonlit night that Obed came across a memory of walking into Mr. C's office with a hex book earlier in the day when the director was attending to other camp matters with a plan to bring things to heck.

Now, wasn't that somethin'.

-BREAK-

**So, here's Obed and a brief mention of Callie. Please review (and some constructive stuff would be preferred)!**


	2. Friday On My Mind

**Friday On My Mind**

_January 1969_

Friday afternoons, Kieran MaCauley figured, Should come a lot sooner.

A strong hand grabbed the collar of his shirt in a tight grip and pushed him against the wall of the quickly clearing B hallway, his head bouncing against it. He looked down longingly at Lymington's The Coming of Strangers, a loved book now crushed under the weight of Jensen Cartwright bending untold amount of pages in ugly creases. He sighed. And he had gotten it on sale. He decided the only way this situation could get any worse was if he picked it up. If he left it on the ground, he's just get his encyclopedias and flatten it out again.

Kieran looked up and caught Jensen's smirking face (a combination of eyes glinting in a dangerous light and self-righteous half-grin) before the jock, hand still in place, pulled the book from under his mud stained All-Stars.

Kieran grimaced at the sound of ripping pages.

Jensen stood back up and dangled the open book in front of Kieran's expressionless hazel eyes, the smell of leather from his letterman jacket making the smaller boy feel like gagging.

"Where's my money, MaCauley?" Jensen demanded loudly in all his Jersey-accented glory. He leaned down into Kieran's face in a play at intimidation. Kieran supposed he could count all of the jock's freckles at this distance. And he would have if he didn't feel completely confused at what the hell this skuzz was going on about.

"I don't owe you any money," he said, frowning. He glanced up at the hallway's lone clock and watched a girl in a polka dotted dress dash down the hall leaving fallen pens clattering in her wake. He was going to be late for class.

"Yes you do!" Jensen shouted with conviction. Kieran noticed that all the doors were closed and there was no chance anyone would've heard his outburst. Maybe he'd get lucky and an administrator would walk by. "The test you gave me gave me a C! That, that's barely passing, y'know!"

Kieran was aware. He was also aware that athletes wouldn't be able to play if their grades were as low as Jensen's had been for a while now. He was currently aware that sitting in the back row of the classroom in an attempt to escape the teachers' questions (which was partially a plea by three of his teachers Sophomore Year who explained his answers to chemistry questions about heat didn't need an extension of the temperature needed for human muscles to begin melting- 44 degrees C- nor do questions about Columbus need a speech about the torturing and enslaving of millions of the Natives followed by an intensely uncomfortable staring contest in which there were no reports of him blinking in six minutes). He was now aware that Jensen had 37 freckles on his left cheek.

Kieran, however, was not aware of owing anyone any money. His father taught him when he was younger that being indebted to someone was the worst thing as they now have some form of control over you.

"I don't see how that means I owe you money."

"Your test answers weren't good enough!"

"I wasn't offering it to you out of kindness, Jensen."

"I need," Jensen squeezed his eyes shut trying to think of a word. He snapped his fingers with his other hand. "Compensation," he finished.

"I still don't understand."

"Word has it you have a job." Jensen was unyielding.

"Millions of people across the United States have jobs." Kieran even more so.

"Don't fuck with me, MaCauley!" Jensen grip on his collar grew tighter, knuckles turning white.

"I'm not fucking with you," Kieran responded in a deadpan. "I don't fuck with anyone. Although, I'm not sure if you mean literally or figuratively."

Jensen's eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement before they widened. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Are you a queer, MaCauley?"

Kieran thought briefly on whether or not that would mean he would finally let go of him. What's being queer to being a Satanist, as people already believed him to be. What's one more lie, even if this was one he knowingly started. "You got me." He allowed a rarely used grin to stretch across his face.

Jensen frantically let go of his collar-

Finally, Kieran thought.

-before ripping his book down the middle and throwing it at his face. "You fucking sodomite."

Down the hall, another letterman-donning figure walked out the bathroom wiping his hands down his pants. "Hey, Cartwright!"

Kieran thought his name was Donald Olivers. Funny how he knew the names of people he didn't know.

When Jensen didn't answer, eyes wide with anger and body leaning against the opposite row of brown lockers in an attempt to distance himself from the smaller auburn haired boy, Donald ran down the hallway to see what was going on.

Donald closed the distance and his laugh abruptly stopped as he saw Jensen's pale figure breathing hard and turned to Kieran who was currently kneeling and picking up the pieces of his beloved book which had somehow separated into three parts although being initially divided into two.

"I think he's worried about being infected." Kieran wanted no further conversation.

"My God, it's the Satanist," Donald said in awe.

"That's what they call me," Kieran answered, standing up. "I think he thinks he's infected with homosexuality."

Kieran didn't have the best way with words so, when Donald drew his fist and punched him in the jaw, he halfway expected it. He was, however, mildly surprised that he even got this much attention in one day from two of the school's best ball players. Usually, he was a social recluse on account of him being in a relationship with Satan. He touched the right side of his jaw and felt a bruise beginning to form.

He shoved the book (or what remained of it) down his messenger bag, straightened his father's dark green sweater, and walked three classrooms down into the Current Events, his last class of the day of which he missed the first 18 minutes, leaving the situation behind him.

He opened the door and closed it behind him, greeted with the smell of ozone from the open window and the sight of twenty six pairs of eyes causing his skin to crawl.

"Would you like to explain to the class why you were late, Mr. MaCauley?" his teacher's, Mr. Lake's, reedy southern voice greeted him.

"I wouldn't like to, Mr. Lake, sir," Kieran said honestly, his hands folded behind him. A few students gasped and giggled.

"That wasn't a suggestion." His teacher, with a hump in his back, thinning hair, and a tendency to look like he may keel over any second, produced an edge to his voice akin to authority.

He answered without hesitation. "I took a large shit in the toilet, Mr. Lake, sir," Kieran answered not so honestly to a murmur among his classmates. He thought it was better than the alternative. He usually answered with the expected "I was sacrificing the newborns to my Lord and Savior Beelzebub". It helped feed his role of a Satanist. Of course, he didn't mean a word of it.

"I'll deal with you and your parents after school." He pointed his finger, mangled with arthritis, at Kieran. "They should know better than to let the likes of you run amok." He gestured to his seat in the back of the class.

Kieran stared at him with a blank expression for fifteen extra seconds before making his way down the classroom, all twenty six pairs of eyes on him. He considered making a remark about how all he had was his grandmother, but he decided it wouldn't make a difference anyway. There were plenty of kids who had fathers in the war and plenty more who were raised without mothers. He just wish it hadn't stung so much.

He slumped into his seat and took out The Coming of Strangers, now in three parts. He wasn't planning on participating in class today. He read the newspaper. Plenty of people read the newspaper and Time. Why was Current Events even a class?

"Pssts, hey!" he heard someone whisper.

Kieran turned to his right and watched the student seated next to him touch his own jaw and point to Kieran's. His name was Pietro Sorenson.

"Does it hurt?" he asked. Kieran figured his eyes would look as sad as his voice sounded. He wouldn't know, though. Pietro's long black hair covered his eyes at all times.

It did hurt. Kieran shrugged. Pietro Sorenson had three out of six classes with him. They had developed a strange sort of relationship, passing food to each other and making non verbal jokes. Sometimes, the hippie would offer him a joint after school to which Kieran would constantly decline but appreciate it anyway.

"You shouldn't let them do that to you, dude," he continued.

Kieran shrugged again. "It doesn't matter."

"What? Of course it matters."

"No, it really doesn't." Kieran looked at him in the eyes, or where he hoped his eyes were. "I'm leaving for camp today."

Pietro brushed his hair away from his eyes and Kieran was surprised that they were a bright shade of green. "That's off the wall, man. Who goes to camp in the middle of January?"

"Me, turns out," Kieran answered. He wasn't going to go into details. And, as much as he liked Pietro, there were more exciting places to be. There were more exciting things to do than learn about the newest president of the United States.

-break-  
><strong>Here's the resident weird kid, Kieran. I tried incorporating some 60s lingo (all from the interet since both my parents were 70s teens) and current events-ish. The first few chapters will be more character introductions than anything else.<br>REVIEW EVERYONE!**


	3. Your Time Is Gonna Come

**Sorry for the long wait. Just a lot of school issues and a scandal that I cheated on something (which I didn't, but it ruins your reputation with a class you're doing badly in anyway, so).**

**Your Time Is Gonna Come**

_January 1969_

Xavier Rayze had no friends. Likewise, he had no enemies. To acquire either, one must put in the effort doing something spontaneous, like forming a relationship, good or bad, with anyone. Xavier, however, didn't care enough to try. He was quite content with that.

Felix Hardgrave, his camp counselor, couldn't get that simple fact through his thick skull.

"Xavier, dude," Felix started in his loud Alabama accent, his fingers tapping against his crossed freckled arms. He seemed to be trying too hard with his serious look, a look that came across more like a child imitating an adult. "You're scaring the new kids. They ain't used t' all your shit. Hell, I'm still ain't used to it none and you need to cut it out."

Xavier raised his eyebrows slightly, the only indication on his scowling face that he was following.

"I know that this here's Hermes cabin (and you're honorary Hermes since we ain't got a cabin for your ma) and we do pranks and harmless stuff-"

"They're not harmless." Xavier cut him off.

"What?"

"When you went into Demeter's cabin and glued every piece of furniture upside down with Hydra's saliva on the ceiling and Missy Farmer went in and a metal chair fell on her head."

"She was fine."

"Yeah. After a month of intensive care." It's not like Xavier knew Missy personally, but she was nice to him like she was nice to everyone. It always upset him, what had happened. "Or when you let loose spiders in the Athena cabin."

"They weren't poisonous," Felix countered.

"Half of them fainted and the other half had panic attacks," Xavier stated, remembering the screams of bloody hell. As he recalled, there were probably about two hundred spiders. Two hundred and fifty, tops.

He wasn't eager to discover where the pranksters had found them either.

"Look," Felix shouted, covering his face in his hands in frustration (or laughter. Xavier could've sworn his shoulders were shaking with laughter. Of course he would laugh. The sick bastard.) "This ain't about me. This is about you. You freak people out, man."

"That's not my problem," Xavier replied, conversationally.

"How that ain't your problem?" Felix asked.

"Don't you think it's kind of pointless to scare someone when they're already terrified of you?"

"Well, gee, Xavier!" Felix stood up and started pacing the floor of the empty Hermes cabin. All the other hyperactive sick puppies (along with an equal number of the garden-variety types) were out doing camp stuff: wreaking havoc on the sparring field, tending to the pegasi, sculpting busts, continuing Catch the Encyclopedia with unwilling Athena participants. Not that Xavier would like to join them; he'd probably be on a hill or behind a building sketching the camp's picturesque landscape. He just couldn't stand being the center of attention, even by one person. He found it suffocating.

"I just," he ran a hand through his tightly curled auburn hair, hair that was deemed too curly for a white boy but not curly enough to work an afro. "We get new kids everyday and it's a gradual thing that spreads across about a week called 'In-truh-duc-tions'. You ain't supposed to search their heads, or whatever the hell you do, and find out what their dead- I dunno- _grandmother_ looked like! That's terrible, that's wrong, and I, I can't have these kids run to me like I'm their pa. That ain't my job. It's making me uncomfortable, dont'cha know?" He stopped pacing and stood in front of the seated boy. "Don't do this to me and don't do this innocent children. Don't impersonate someone's dead ma and maybe," he bit the inside of his cheek in thought. "Maybe I'll pay you or something."

Xavier wouldn't trust the integrity of Felix Hardgrave if he were the last sorry excuse for a human on the planet.

"I'll think about it," he said instead.

That seemed to please Felix enough. "That's bitchin', man! I'm counting on you." He reached out his hand as if to slap Xavier's with a high five but thought better of it and pulled it back. "I'll see you at lunch, then?" He didn't wait for an answer and opened the door of the cabin and slamming it behind him, a not-so-subtle way of saying he wanted to get away from Xavier as much as Xavier wanted alone.

Being alone bothered Xavier less and less as time went on.

In the silence, Xavier walked to the back corner of the cabin where his bag and bedding lay. He unzipped his bag and took out a brown sketchbook. There were disconnected pages jammed between connected pages, pages full of failed ideas and scratching out. He never considered himself to be terribly sentimental when it came to material things. His ideology was that the end came for everything; no one could carry 'precious items' beyond the grave.

His sketchbook, however, was different. It held his ideas, his dreams. Dark as they were, he could never bring himself to toss them in a bin.

Leaving his bag open (no one bothered to take anything out of it anyway. Who wants the wrath of Ghost Boy?), he opened the door and headed out.

He walked down the field where other campers were dueling and trudged up a hill. He was mildly happy that no one had tried to stop him as there's always that one kid who wanted to involve him in underwater basket weaving with the naiads, mostly as a joke.

He stopped at the top of the hill. It was cold outside, and the shade blocking the sun's rays only made it cooler. Although he's never admit it to anyone, he got cold. He wasn't dead. He felt heat as much as he felt a wind chill.

He sat, took out his notebook, and hummed "House of the Rising Sun" as he sketched the Demeter kids practicing some type of interpretive dance causing flowers to spring up in patterns around them. Xavier didn't know much about plants, but he was certain that pansies weren't supposed to just blossom in the dozens in winter.

"Pansies don't blossom in the winter. They're spring plants," a light voice muttered.

Xavier turned around slowly. He'd like to say that nothing surprised him, but voices that appeared out of no where, _behind him_, would make his heart skip a beat just like any normal person's.

A girl sat, her creamy brown arms wrapped around her knees. She had a thick build, similar to one of a chubby swimmer. She wore something like a school uniform, a long-sleeved white shirt (Peter Pan collared) and knee-length navy skirt that matched the bow wrapped around her loosely curled black hair in color. Her blue eyes, a little unusually wide, stared at Xavier's drawing, down at the dancers, and back.

"They don't blossom in the winter," she repeated. "They're not supposed to. I read a book on them. They'll just die." She seemed genuinely concerned at the notion. Plants dying.

"Don't be too worried about them," Xavier said, wondering if he'd ever seen this girl before. There were so many kids in and out of the Hermes cabin he felt no need to keep track. "Plants have no concept of death and dying. Feeling sorry for something that can't feel is a waste of time."

"Are you a plant," the girl said quietly.

"No," he answered. Why was she still here?

"Then how can you say how much they feel?" she finished. She no longer seemed to want to talk about the subject any longer. "You make their limbs look stiff," she said, pointing at his page. "They dance gracefully, like ballerinas. Not robots." She attempted to take his pencil and correct it.

Xavier scowled and snapped his book shut. "What do you know anyway?" he said loudly, harsher than he meant it to.

The girl shrugged, seemingly not bothered by his outburst. She brought her hand back and ran it over the stiff yellowing grass around her. "You come here often," she said, her eyes searching his face. "Alone."

"Yeah," Xavier answered, not liking where he figured this conversation would go. "What of it? I don't bother people with my company and I'd prefer it if others did the same."

"Am I bothering you?" she asked, braiding some of her long black hair absentmindedly.

"Yes," Xavier said tersely, standing up. "Very much so." All his three years of living here and no one had bothered him on this hill. People, if they knew any better, knew it as "Rayze Hill", never used by the camp and always left alone. This girl must have been new if she decided up and waltz up after him. An action, he believed, was unacceptable. "And I'd really like you to leave."

The girl pointed to her right cheek and dragged her finger down to her neck. "Where did you get that scar?"

Xavier had had it. "Get. Off. This. Hill," he said slowly.

"It doesn't have your name on it." The girl said this mostly to herself, not really making a move to get up.

Pacing, Xavier took two deep breaths, trying to keep his frustration in check. When he opened his eyes again, he looked into the girl's wide blue eyes and searched. Finding what he was looking for, he smiled and spoke in a voice, deeper, older, and heavily Spanish-accented. "Do you honestly want to go down that route, Shannon?"

The girl, Shannon, gasped and her eyes went even wider than before, bulging slightly. She opened her mouth a few times to speak but eventually decided against it.

Xavier allowed himself a small smile of victory.

However, Shannon wasn't standing up and leaving either. She bit at her lower lip for a few seconds before she looked into Xavier's eyes, or the eyes of what he was displaying. The eyes of her long deceased and decaying corpse of her grandfather.

"They said you could do that, look like the dead and whatnot." She spoke softly, as if she could feel the annoyance pulsing from Xavier in waves. "He died when I was this much." She held up one finger on her right hand and a peace sign on the other making the number 'twelve'. "He died in a storm."

Xavier's face flickered between his own and her grandfather's before settling back to the pale-faced boy's for good. The boy sat down slowly on the yellowing grass and made a motion for her to go on, a good deal suprised at her reaction, the first that was never a scream.

Shannon wasn't the best at reading emotions, but she decided to believe that he wasn't just goading her on, wanting to know what had killed her grandfather. He seemed curious, but not thanatophiliac about it.

Her grandfather's death was a strange one. Sr. Jose Soldevilla was a lucky man. He rose his way through the ranks of Cuban society. He was charismatic and, from stories she was told by her father, had a way with the ladies that seemed to be a certain gift. He had a an insatiable thirst for the finer things in life which led him to leave, change his surname to Walker, and establish himself in Florida during the 1930s, America's Great Depression. Not letting that stop him, he led an organization that went around swindling people out of their hard earned money obtaining an easy life.. He had enough lackies to spare if anyone became suspicious of his tactics.

"He wasn't a good man," she started. "He didn't care much for people at all. He especially hated my grandmother, though I've never discovered why. My father looked like her and I look like my father, so he never liked me much. He called me stupid."

"Good riddance to him, then. You can't exactly apologize for being a girl."

Shannon hmmed in response. "He went out yachting when his boat got overturned after having an arguement with my dad." The argument was about her. "His body got all mangled and bloated since they didn't find him for days. The people who found him said it looked like he was killed before he hit the water. They just don't know who did it. All I'm saying is that you did give me a fright, but nothing more. It's not like we were ever close."

"There's just no getting rid of you, is there?" Xavier asked, no where near as harshly as he had spoken earlier.

"You're just up here by yourself and everyone down there thinks I'm," she waved her hands around as if looking for the right word. "Weird. Wild. A spaz."

"No, just weird." Xavier smirked, but it was so quick you could hardly say it was there. "My mother is dead. My foster mother." He chucked sadly. "Here I am with the ability to resemble the dead and I can't even conjure her up and look at her face in the mirror."

"Sorry," she said.

Xavier shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry about. Death is inevitable; it would've happened eventually." He looked down the hill and saw the group of dancing teenagers had grown to include two satyrs, ten Dryads, and Apollo kids holding a decent tune singing "Incense and Peppermints" while clapping their hands.

"You know," he started. "You're the first person to not bug out when I did that."

"And you're the first person to to talk to me longer than five minutes," she said, chewing on some hair in her mouth. She clapped her hands. "We could be like Two Musketeers. Two freakshows against the world."

"Tempting," Xavier admitted. He handed her the sketchbook. "What was that you said about them looking too stiff."

Shannon took the book and started to erase some of the sketches. "Consider me your new teacher."

"Considered," Xavier agreed. Maybe he could handle having a teacher. He might even think about doing spontaneous, like making a friend.

**Okay, so the ending seems kind of rushed. From the submissions, Xavier and Shannon seemed to be the two loners with some of the most issues. I added some extra things to a character (which I hope the creator doesn't mind). First I was like, they both like drawing. Then it grew from there. **

**And everyone should stop and go listen to "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock (that name tho). It's on the archive . gov website in case you ever want to get into a classic psychedelic pop moment.**


	4. Beg, Borrow, and Steal

**Beg, Borrow, and Steal**

_January 1969_

"The bitch is _dead_," growled Amanda Ericson in all ferocity she could muster.

A sleepy reply came from underneath the bunk of the previous speaker. "Why are you still up, Amanda?" The white noise of the Ares cabinmates' snoring should have drowned out her inquiry but Amanda still managed to hear.

"I'm not talking to you, lava nigger. I never do," the clipped response came. The girl shoved her blankets off her body and sat at the edge of her high bunk, legs swinging while she mulled over her next move.

The "lava nigger" (or the Hawai'i-born Calliope "Callie" Mahelona as she liked to be called), started again, although she was somewhat amused at the latest insult thrown her way. Amanda was many things, but you couldn't call her uncreative. She stretched out from her standard sleeping position (the fetal) and sat crosslegged leaning against the adjacent wall. "Is this about Megan again?" Callie had seen her tossing and turning over the past few days always muttering something about flames and fire. The is the first time she ever woke up from one.

Amanda huffed in response with no intention of answering her question. Arms crossed, her mind went to Megan Richardson. That daughter of a bastard bitch Morpheus and her depraved ability to enter someone's mind. And to think that she had actually considered her as someone akin to a possible friend once and now… Another one of these and she just might see if her skull was as breakable as...as…

"Amanda, you're bleeding," Callie said from below her. Amanda looked down at her crossed arms and noticed that her fingernails had punctured her skin, red trailing down her arms.

She would find out if Megan's skull was as breakable as her skin.

"Are you seriously considering pounding her?" Callie asked her. While she wasn't necessarily the only exception to the rule, she knew that it was an established fact that Ares' children tended to go after things pretty rashly. It didn't matter to her that what Amanda said to her face about her was what the silent majority of the campers were thinking; she was self-proclaimed peacekeeper of the cabin. Needed to be. If there was no peace-keeper in this cabin, the wooden walls would be a great deal redder.

Amanda jumped off her top bunk, her disheveled long black hair covering half of her face giving her the appearance of something ghoulish. She snatched away a flashlight from a drooling camper with more bulk than he should have been allowed for a twelve year old. She unlatched several crudely made locked up and down the rim of the doorway and opened it, brisk and cold wind greeting her.

Anyone else might have looked upon her silhouette and believed her to be comparable to one with great power and authority by the way she stood. Something like an Amazon.

Callie saw a sleep-deprived girl only using half of her brain about to do something she wouldn't be able to undo.

"Don't follow me," Amanda said in a low voice.

Callie, already tying up her All Stars, had a good habit of not listening.

They walked past the cabins to a small shed outside of the 12 Cabin Horseshoe. It was unofficially donned the Cabin of the Lost Boys by Obed.

Thing was, it was well-known that Camp Half Blood had only twelve official cabins for the countless kids it got throughout the years. Most were evenly divided into seven of them: Aphrodite, Ares, Athena, Demeter, Hephaestus, Dionysus, and Apollo. Hera, as the goddess of her own divine family, had no illegitimate children so, while there was a cabin in her honor, no one lived in it. Artemis, the maiden goddess of the hunt, had no children because of her unyielding virginity.

Shortly after the Second World War, the Olympians had to make a decision regarding its aftermath. As most of the damage and devastation had been caused by the powerful children of Hades, Zeus, and Poseidon, it was decreed that there could be no more children of the Big Three, lest another war sweep the Earth. Yet rumors fly, as they often do. Gods couldn't keep their problems in their pants like they couldn't for centuries. And those cabins were empty, for now.

Then, there were the cases of the cabin-less. Designated cabin in their honor or not, the so-called 'minor' gods and goddesses still made their lineage known at the nightly campfire. So they came all the time: Thomas of Asclepius, Xavier of Melinoe, Arnica of Enyo, Obed of Hebe, Christina of Nike, Wes of Iris, Larry and Lawrence of Hecate, that new girl Shannon of Kymopoleia for example.

Megan of Morpheus.

And some decided to stay inside the overly cramped Hermes cabin, a home for all unaccounted for travelers and teenagers, even if some Hermes kids were resentful that they had to share their limited space with people who weren't even their own. But, rumor had it Obed had made such a stink about their situation for decades that a cabin of sorts was built. (Not that Obed lived in it; he slept anywhere he dropped).

Thus, the rickety-looking piss-yellow shed was born. There was never a solid explanation for the color but it wasn't a big deal anyway.

Amanda marched up to the door of the cabin, steam practically rising from her body.

"Maybe you should knock," Callie suggested.

Amanda punched the lock and yanked open the door as if she didn't hear her. If that didn't make her presence known well enough, she screamed inside, "I'm coming for you, you _slaggin' bitch!_" The door slammed behind her.

Callie winced and looked around the moonlit land. "Gods, I hope they didn't hear that." 'They' being the harpys.

With one more glance over her shoulder, she sighed and opened the unlocked door and murmured a prayer under her breath that no one was dead yet.

The other thing about the Cabin of the Lost Boys (or Cabin 13) was that it was constructed by Muriel Bouwmeester, a daughter of Hecate and legacy of Hephaestus not long after the the Second World War. It was decided in the Camp Council that Cabin 13 could only be constructed by those it was meant to serve. As quoted by the head counselor of the Hephaestus cabin back then, "If you want your own cabin so bad, make your own damn one." Muriel decided she was the one for the job, and what a job it was.

For starters, it may have had the looks of an unseemly and humble shed, but the surprise came once you walked in.

Callie's eyes widened and she gasped, like she did every time she entered. The interior of Cabin 13 had a ceiling higher than any of the other cabins and it extended further back encompassing several other rooms. The ceiling was painted black and decorated with stars and constellations (which would rotate with the turning of the actual sky). On the wall nearest to the door were names of each minor god or goddess ever represented inside this cabin (Hecate, Morpheus, Enyo, Iris, Nike, Hebe, Asclepius, Hypnos, Themis, Kymopoleia, Meiboia, Nemesis, Eris, Euphrosyne, Harpocates, and Iakchos). It was furnished with rugs, carpets, and orange drapes framing the single window at the back. It had sofas and chairs and a bronze-coated record player on a table in the center, a box of albums to its left. Worn out books, National Geographic and Time magazines were stacked up next to a wall. All of these were lit up with multicolored lamps and lights.

As Callie walked further in wondering where in Hades Amanda was, a door opened at the right of her. It was green and read 'NIKE' at the top in golden lettering.

"Hi, Christina," Callie gave a friendly smile and waved.

Christina, daughter of Nike, nodded to her in greeting. Her short blonde hair was sticking up in all directions and she shivered, tugging her forest green robe tighter. Her green eyes were raised, but not in confusion. "This is about Amanda and Megan, yes?"

Callie nodded. "Mostly about Amanda, anyway. She's blaming Megan for her nightmares." She glanced up at the clock that read 2:31. "Shouldn't everyone be asleep?" She gestured to the colored lights in around the cabin.

"You're one to talk," Christina said in her heavy Boston accent. "I was studying for school. Harvard doesn't exactly hand out free passes. And, to answer your question about the lights. That's all your sister's doing. Waking everyone up like that like she lives here."

"She isn't my sister," Callie said automatically.

"Sure," Christina gave a half smile. "Unrelated, but if you're craving any post-Midnight snacks, Angelica and Mason are cooking up some honey sweets in Angelica's cabin."

Callie thought about Angelica, the daughter of Meiboia, and Mason, the son of Euphrosyne. They were possibly the two most kindest kids in the whole camp. The duo were one in only a handful that didn't notice her brown skin and look in the other direction.

"It's a little too late -er- _early_ to be having sweets right now, but tell them I appreciated the offer."

Christina shrugged. "Third door to your left. Be quick. It's too early to mop up blood." She turned to reenter her room.

Callie thanked her, said good night (answered with a yawn) and ran down the hall, opening the dark grey door that read 'MORPHEUS' in gold lettering.

Callie was amazed at the wonders of soundproof doors.

"...sending me visions of _falling to my death!_" Amanda's face was red and she clawed at the air in front of Megan, only held back by the strong dark brown arms of Thomas Moore, the only son of Asclepius in Camp Half Blood's history.

_Well,_ Callie thought about Amanda's racist nature. _If that doesn't just add insult to injury._

"Mandi, honey," Megan said in her trademark Texan drawl. She wore a nightgown that looked to be blue silk. She wore a small smile. "Falling dreams are just as common as your devotion to the Beach Boys. So depressingly common." She sat down on her blue-blanketed bed, thick brown hair flying about with some undetectable wind.. "Now, if you said you had received a dream about you being set on fire while your loved ones looked on, that might be a cause for alarm."

Amanda screamed, becoming more and more disturbed that she was being held back by a Negro. "That's what happened at the end! That's how it ends! I'm burned alive!" Her voice became shrill.

"Honey, I would never waste my time sending you nightmares." She crossed the room and stopped in front of her mirror, her face frowning in disgust at a blemish no one could see. She continued talking as she applied makeup to her lower eyelid. "There are easier ways to make myself pass out or make you have a wardrobe of brown pants."

"Maybe it was a vision," Callie spoke up, the first time since entering.

Amanda turned to her, her face becoming even more red. "I told you not to follow me."

Callie understood that rage can cloud your senses (even more so if your father is the war god), but it wasn't like she was being subtle about walking behind her.

"Cal, honey!" Megan walked towards her, gave her a little hug, and kissed the air at each side of her face. "It's so nice to see you. In my room." She tossed her head, frowning at said room. "Sorry for the look. It's looking a little Japanese at the moment, but that's to be expected. I'm renovating."

The introduction took Callie by surprise. In all the years she knew her (even saying 'knew her' is sort of strong. More like 'watched from a considerable distance'), she couldn't say that she liked the girl any. Megan tended to give anyone that wasn't her disdainful looks and fake laughter.

"Hi, Megan. Hi, Thomas," Callie smiled at the boy.

Thomas, clad in denim overalls over a white t-shirt, nodded back. "Nice to see you, Callie. I would wave but." He looked down at the fuming girl.

"I didn't know you guys were friends." Callie knew Thomas to be a bit of a one man band and Megan wasn't the friendliest person.

"Since last week," Megan started. "He saved my life in that nasty bit of Capture the Flag."

Callie couldn't recall any nasty bits. Capture the Flag last week was very tame. It was over Christmas after all; the majority of the most competitive and toughest players were out of town. Megan was probably just being her dramatic self.

"Now," she continued, walking back. "What was that about your theory. That this is some sort of message."

Callie chewed the inside of her cheek. "I'm not sure, but as long as I've known Amanda, she's never had a single nightmare. None of us usually do; our cabin's full of heavy sleepers." She shrugged. "Maybe she's just overreacting."

Thomas cried out. Amanda had escaped his grip and was now scratching at her arms, repulsed at the darker man holding her for that long. "I am _not_ overreacting." She opened her mouth to speak further.

"Honey," Megan interrupted, clicking her tongue. "Most everyone dreams. Most people don't remember them when they wake up." She stared at Amanda in distaste. "And stop looking at me like that, will you? I receive dreams, not give them just for laughs. Am I laughing?"

"Maybe you could just search her head," Thomas said, rubbing his arms where Amanda elbowed it. "There's nothing to lose by just double checking, or something."

"I'm losing peace and quiet," Megan muttered, tapping her fingers on her desk. "And gods know I'm not in the mood." She sighed heavily. "How much drachma do you have in your possession, Amanda?"

"You can't have any."

"And I suppose you'll continue to be plagued by nightmares of your blood boiling and your skin blackening until it actually happens?"

Amanda got even redder, if that were possible. "Twenty-nine,"she mumbled.

"I want twenty of those."

"What?" Amanda's mouth dropped. "I use those to talk with my mom." As much as Amanda couldn't stand her drug addict of a mother, she still felt the need to talk to her every once in a while.

"Honey, I don't negotiate." Megan smiled sweetly. "Save up."

Amanda groaned and punched the wall creating a dent.

"Oh, dearie, I'm afraid it's now jumped to twenty-three."

Amanda took a shuddering deep breath. "How long will it take?"

"It depends," was her only answer as she walked towards Amanda with her manicured fingers outstretched.

"Depends on what?" Amanda asked as Megan's fingers pressed onto her skull causing her to wince in pain.

Megan hmmed. "It just depends." In a few seconds, Amanda's vision went black as Megan entered her head.

The first thing Megan heard when she came to was Thomas worried speaking.

"Is she okay?" he started. "I've never seen her do anything like that." His voice was uncharacteristically high-pitched. "Her eyes just rolled back and her bloomin' eyes are white." He made a sound like he was trying not to barf. "Is she in any pain? Are the black veins normal? Man, that doesn't look healthy."

"No worries, Thomas," she said. She stood back and stretched letting Amanda drop from her grip and flop on the ground like a ragdoll. She brushed back a few strands of her hair and looked at him with her alluring grey eyes. "For a son of Asclepius you have something of a weak stomach."

Thomas gulped and attempted to shrug it off. However, he still looked more than a little nauseous at the sight of the black veins in her arms disappearing up her head.

The 'procedure' only took about three to four minutes. She had learned from a late daughter of Hypnos that certain things you would have to really dig for if it was a dream, yet as a child of Morpheus, it took more brute force. Dreams are fleeting things, evanescent. In this case, whatever Amanda had been dreaming reacurringly was at the top of her mind so that was Megan could see immediately after she dove in.

"She's right about one thing," she started as Amanda cursed about a headache on the ground. "It wasn't from me. I suppose the only reason I guessed as well as I did is because it is my nature." She began to pace the empty room, her bare feet tapping against the wooden floor. "Yet...yet I can't be certain who I saw setting the fire."

"Someone else was in there?" Callie whispered. She had been talking with Thomas in order to take his mind off of the action. Tough kid in many things, that Thomas. If that didn't include looking at totally white eyes and black veins apparently. "Who?"

"I just said I didn't know," Megan snapped. She tapped her fingers against her thighs in irritation then smoothed down the sleeves of her nightgown. "I can give a basic description. Starting with his eyes." She set her mouth in a firm line, thinking intently. "His absolutely black eyes."

Thomas patted his pockets down looking for a pen or pencil. Finding nothing, he said, "Make us repeat it at the end so we won't forget it."

Megan decided against saying that they would _want _to forget. "He had black eyes. Not the kind that you get from a punch to the face. Rather, where his iris and whites would be, it was all pitch black." She paused, eyebrows furrowing. "Looking directly at me."

"I thought you could only see into dreams," Callie said.

"I view them like I'm watching a show. No alterations, no interactions. No following my gaze."

"If his eyes were black like you said, then you couldn't really tell where his eyes were looking, right?"

"Calliope," Megan's eyes hardened. Callie didn't know she knew her full name. "Must I spell it out for you? I. Know. What. I. Saw." Her face changed expressions the next second, like a light switch. "Come to think about it, he was actually kind of a hunk. All sharp cheekbones and hooded eyes. Tall, dark, and handsome."

Thomas was silently repeating everything she said until she said 'tall, dark, and handsome'. "You mean, white, right?"

"I don't think the gods are white," Callie said. "They're just...gods."

Megan smirked. "Let's pretend that made sense."

"Any noticeable features," Thomas asked. "Gods can change appearance, so anything like clothing or symbols or anything."

"Besides lit torches he was throwing at people, nothing." Megan was looking more and more disinterested with the subject matter. She walked to her bed. From underneath it, she pulled out a box of Vogue and Cosmopolitan magazines. Opening one, she flipped through the pages. "Take it up with Chiron or Euterpe or someone."

"Don't you think you should come with us?" Callie was getting the memo that she was overstaying her welcome. "This could be a warning or something. If the fire-man-person looked at you, it could be impor-"

"That's nice, honey." Callie was sure she thought it wasn't. "Fact of the matter is, it's none of my business. I want no part in it. People get trigger-happy with the messenger."

"But-"

"Get out." It was spoken with an air of nonchalance, but it carried the weight of a threat.

"Consider us gone," Thomas said. He offered a hand to Amanda who just slapped it away.

Once out the door, Amanda stormed off and kicked over the neatly stacked magazines. Once she exited, she slammed the door behind her.

"She's something, isn't she?" Thomas said, closing Megan's door behind them. "Dramatic like that."

"Amanda or Megan?" Callie asked, still upset that Megan didn't seem to care about a potential very-bad-thing.

"I was talking about Amanda." He gestured to the fallen and scattered Nat Geos and Times.

"She has her days," Callie admitted. Thomas laughed a little at that.

"How do you do it?" Callie wondered. "Megan's rude."

"Megan isn't what she seems," was his only answer. He crouched down to fix the stack. Callie also helped.

Walking down the hall to the exit door, Callie said what they were both thinking. "We have to tell Chiron. Later, but it has to happen."

"We will," Thomas said. Opening the door, he gave a stern look at Callie. "Don't stay up all night thinking about it."

"I will."

"It's not healthy," Thomas said. "Sleep deprivation can cause a variety of effects including, but not limited to, low cognitive functioning, hallucinations, impairment of judgement,-"

"It won't kill me." Callie smiled.

"It could." Thomas grinned back.

"So, uh, nice talking with you." She started walking in the direction of her cabin, snow falling lightly. "See you later today."

"Go to sleep," Thomas called back.

Callie had a good habit of not listening.

**Hellooooooo! I updated! I know you all love me, don't kid yourself.**

**So, given all the snow, I've had lots of time for research. **

**Mr. D is an iffy thing for me since it says in the last book that he would only have to serve 50 yrs. out of the 100, so I'm thinking he wasn't here then. Since Chiron can't run the place himself (I mean, **_**hypothetically**_** he could, but that's too much chaos in a concentrated space) I added Euterpe, the muse of music. No appearance yet, but she'll come.**

**So, while researching god, I came across really cool ones that I've never heard of. You all know and love Hecate, Morpheus, Iris, Nike, Hebe, Asclepius, Hypnos, Kymopoleia (she's in one of the latest HoO books), and Eris, so no detail in those. But as for the others,**

**Enyo: Goddess of Destruction and Waster of Cities**

**Themis: Goddess of Justice**

**Meiboia: Goddess of Bees/ the Bee Cult (do you know how cool this is!? the goddess of BEES. apparently, she was soooo minor that she's only been found on a few scrolls and writings, but there's nothing else. which means, i can be as liberal as i want with her. i won't be making a lot of my own half-blood characters, but i had to make my own for this because she might be the coolest find ever for me. just. freaking. AWESOME!)**

**Euphrosyne: Goddess of Happiness and Joy**

**Harpocates: God of Silence and Secrecy**

**And last, but most certainly not least, Iakchos: God of Who the FUCK Knows Even. Half the shit I find for him is just guess work and fun times. I find him in less than 10 sources. 10! His name sounded cool so yeah, I was gonna use him**

**Here's the list and use it wisely, friends. (You might even be able to guess where I'm headed with this if you really, _really _read between the lines.)**

**And, the only reason I'm adding so much descriptions with the cold and snow is because it's sort of hinted that the barrier CHB has wasn't always there. They've had Thalia's Tree, and the Golden Fleece (both of which helped make the barrier work), but they also had Festus which implies (to me, at least) that the force field thingee wasn't always the standard.**

**And, I just figured the Greeks could keep tabs on legacies, not just the Romans. Because.**

**And, I really didn't want to just say, "The piss-yellow cabin was bigger on the inside" because this is my realm and in my realm, Doctor Who references are not spoken (just lower me into my grave, moffat, so you can let me down one last time)**

**And, that's it. I hope the creators of Amanda, Calliope, Megan, and Thomas thought this was cool. If not, fear not! Plenty more chapters to come to solidify their personalities and mannerisms. PM me if you have any problems or inputs.**

**Till the next update!**

**Edit: I added Melinoe to the list of gods/goddesses ever represented in Cabin 13. The reason I didn't add him then was because I established in the last chapter that he didn't even know Shannon was there despite him never really leaving the camp. He's the Ghost Boy, the 20th century (or more _strictly_ 20th century) child of the underworld. I see him as a less awkward and more creepy Nico di Angelo, and Nico was (or felt) pretty excluded in all the CHB boarding and activities. And, while he may have resided in Cabin 13 for a while, he was probably 'kicked out' so to speak. Then, he goes to the Hermes cabin since they can't really say know…?**

**Or, you could chalk it up to the fact I had so many submissions with minor godly parents that I had to put them somewhere and the idea didn't come until after Ch. 3. **


	5. I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)

**I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)**

_January 1969_

Try as she might, Callie couldn't sleep a wink. She knew Kieran was, but she wasn't partial to anything of the horror variety.

After twisting and turning in her bed, she kicked off her purple comforters and sat crosslegged, back to the wooden wall of the cabin. She sighed once, then again, mind wandering.

_What in Hades does fire have to do with Amanda? _she thought. _And why did it bother Megan so much._

It wasn't until 4:41, a good hour and forty minutes after walking into Cabin 13, that she realized she had misinterpreted what she had seen on the grey-eyed girl's face. What she had mistook for dismissiveness and curtness might have still been dismissive and curt, but there was fear as well. She played it off well with her devil-may-care attitude and sudden jump into the man's attractiveness, but, call her paranoid, it seemed too sudden. And they still needed to tell Chiron.

She couldn't risk leaving the cabin again for she and her cabin weren't on the best of terms with the harpies. They threatened with eating them. She wasn't sure if the threat was ever followed out, but she wasn't going to push it either.

But, she still couldn't sleep.

She groaned, kicked the bottom of the bunk above her and tried to think of something else, anything else. Even Amanda was sound asleep, snoring the hours away without any sign of distress.

She tried to think about something else, so her mind went to life before Camp. She hadn't been in Camp too long (not as long as many of the campers who lived here for years), but it had its pros and cons like anywhere else. It's isolation was a pro and con, it's diversity was a colossal pro, but it's aggressive sports and ban on all things pot and tripping was a con. Win some, lose some.

She did missed her friends, however. They were all older than her (ranging from one year to several), but the fun she had with them was crazy. Sweating and dancing at one of TJ's gigs, trying her hands at the drums at Kekipi's place with him laughing mercilessly at her failure and no sense of rhythm, lying around Lonnie's living room zonked out of their minds after an unreal party, surfing with all the guys at North Shore on O'ahu even though she lived at the next island of Moloka'i (the six of them would just travel after the late bell at Moloka'i High School in Kaunakakai to childhood home of O'ahu every Friday), traveling to Chicago the year before with the Youth International Party to host a radical Festival of Life at the Democratic National Convention which reacted havoc for an unreal eight days. Memories.

Gods, she missed them.

It wasn't as if traveling to New York wasn't in itself an adventure and it wasn't as if she hadn't made other friends (although, what were a few months to several years?). Callie had embraced the diversity, but had detested the unspoken discrimination among the campers. She couldn't force herself to turn a blind eye to how the majority of the white campers were unapologetically racist to anyone who had the slightest brown tint to their skin that didn't come from a tan. Even some Asian campers, some paler than the white ones, were subjected to backhanded whispers of "Jap". Even if they weren't a "Jap".

It frustrated her and she wasn't used to keeping so quiet about things that bothered her. However, she had learned quickly within her first week at camp that if you had something to say, you had better say it after already being pretty decent with a sword because there would be blood.

But, she never grew up thinking that you had to practically duel over someone's rights as a human being. Or whatever in Hades they were.

After a while, it only took Callie to think about one of her Tutu's lullabies for her to fall asleep finally.

_He nani lua 'ole_

_Ku'u wehi o nâ lani_

_He kilohana 'oe_

_Na'u e pûlama mau_

_Ho'olu i ka poli e_

_Mehana i ke anu e_

_-break-_

Thomas Moore considered himself unlucky.

We woke up, stretched, and bowed his head to begin his daily (however brief) devotional. Yes, one could shoot and fling every piece of evidence of the existence of Greek mythology, but he grew up a Southern Baptist. He believed in the Olympians and the Titans and his own father, but he still believed there was a Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And nothing would shake his faith.

After muttering and "Amen" under his breath, he grabbed his white jacket from where it was hanging on his chair and tossed red, white, yellow, and black vials into one pocket and a bag of what looked like Mary Jane (but wasn't. It was more like powdered anesthesia that wouldn't blow you up if you had too much) into the other. Being the best at medicine and doctoring in the whole camp (more so than the Apollo cabin) came with tons of responsibility.

He tossed it over his shoulder and opened his drawer and pulled out a red and white checkered plaid shirt, blue jeans, and red socks just because. Still dressed in his pajamas, he opened his door with a determination to make it to the shower before the rest of his cabinmates got up.

The lights were still out and Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. He lived for mornings like this, mornings when everything was quiet and it was still somewhat dark out. Even if he only had a few hours of sleep wasn't going to make him any less excited for the early hours.

He walked down the wooden floor to the bathroom at the end of the hall. He faced the bathroom that said "HERM" at the top and entered-

-just as a balloon filled with red paint dropped on his head.

"_CACH!_" a higher-pitched voice whispered and screeched seemingly at the same time. "Dear God, Thomas! What're'ya doin' here?"

"It's the guy's bathroom," he said automatically before closing his mouth immediately so no red paint would get in his mouth.. He frowned as if just getting the oddity of the situation. "Arnica, what are you doing in here?"

The daughter of Enyo looked confused for a good second before she burst into laughter causing the mirror to crack in spiderweb patterns. Thomas was concerned that she would cause it to shatter.

"_Hynny yw yn stori_," she said. "I was waiting for Larry and Lawrence, the _haliwrs_. Thinkin' they can _try _and make me think that I'm six feet under, like my bed's a coffin, and it smellin' all dirt, and that they can get away with it, makin' me think like I'm dead and buried? _Jawch annwl eriôd!_" She continued to curse in her Welsh tongue, clenching her walnut brown fists as if demonstrating what she would do to the magical red-headed twins once she saw them. Thomas didn't know. He didn't speak flippin' Welsh.

Thomas still stood, white jacket tossed over his shoulder now stained like it had seen bloody war. "Arnica, there is something seriously wrong with you."

Arnica shrugged, her tightly curled brown hair bouncing as it always did. Thomas noticed many things, and he always noticed that it didn't matter the situation, whether in Capture the Flag, wrestling, swordsmanship, scrubbing off the bloody and muddy bits off of armor getting the bloody and muddy bits on her, her hair was always perfect. If it wasn't for her being claimed by Enyo, Thomas would have instantly thought of her being Aphrodite's.

"Still, Tommy-boy, I am _so_ sorry," she said, standing awkwardly like everything she planned went to ruin.

"I've gotta get that off of ya soon. In a few minutes, it'll redden and boil with welts."

Thomas stood in silence for a few seconds before repeating," There is something wrong with you."

"Whatever," she said. "I'll get ya to Angie. She'll fix you right up before anything more happens." She

walked up and grabbed Thomas' hand with a stronger grip than one would expect from a hand as delicate-looking as hers.

She stopped at the doorway for a second before sighing. "I'll be back to fix this. They deserve what's

comin' for 'em."

They walked to the yellow door that said MEIBOIA at the top. After a few sharp knocks and a few "I'll be a

while, just wait"s, Arnica leaned against the door with arms crossed.

It occurred to Thomas that he never truly had a conversation with her. He had made it a goal to have a

conversation with every member of the camp, every half-blood, every nature spirit, every satyr, just so he could tell his potential friends from potential enemies. His was a hard task, but if you're a better medic than the whole Apollo cabin, you need to know allergies and phobias and the names of who had them.

"So," Thomas started, desperately hoping that her first impression of him wouldn't stick in her memory as the boy in homemade gingham pajamas with red dripping from his hair down his arms trying to stand in some way while he was chilled to the bone. "What's your story?"

"What story?" she said. She was currently amusing herself with pulling down a kinky-curled hair down until it was taut before letting it go.

"Everyone has a story," Thomas said. "Some story about how you got to camp. I mean, Eric got here with his best friend who turned out to be a satyr, Callie stabbed a Scylla before getting here, Amanda got forced here by her dad directly, Liesl and Maria just happened near it since they got lost eating strawberries,..."

"Liesl and Maria Gaede are a couple of white bitches who think that they're entitled to the very jewelry off of Elizabeth Taylor's neck." She snorted briefly. "'Least they would if she didn't happen to be Jewish." She took in Thomas' startled expression and before he could defend them with some half-assed reason in her opinion, she continued. "I try to be nice, I really do. But it's hard when the two of them and so many others look at ya as if you've got raging herpes and _cach_ all about ya and even acknowledgement of ya will get them infected."

"I wouldn't have said it in so many words," Thomas said, starting to scratch behind his neck like he needed to get _underneath_ his skin in order to get the itch away. It just came all of a sudden and it hurt like hell.

"Oh." Arnica's eyes widened and she snapped her fingers together a few times in succession. The lights flickered and Thomas glanced at them worriedly. This wouldn't be the first time Arnica blew out the lights because she was excited and it certainly wouldn't be the last. "That crazy girl- Amanda, yes?- was here last night. She seemed pretty distressed."

Thomas felt his stomach turn, though he wasn't sure if it had to do with the fact that the paint was drying and the itch was worse or that he felt a little ownership over the nightmare dilemma. "Yeah? How much did you hear?"

Arnica gave him a look that said, "You-really-think-I-heard-_nothing_-with-all-that-screaming?" when the door opened.

"Hiya!" Angelica greeted them in all her usual enthusiasm. Her blonde hair hung down to her waist in waves. The hippie waved at both of them with a her ever-present smile before making a 'come in' gesture. So they did.

"She really did a number on you, didn't she Thomas? What a bummer, what a shame," she said. Thomas had never been in her room. It wasn't really his place; you didn't just go into some girl's room. But,in his opinion, he wasn't sure how the blonde girl could stand it. It was frilly and yellow with yellow frills all over. There were Beatles and Animals and the Monkees posters, but they all had a good deal of yellow within them. Angelica all dressed in yellow danced away to her yellow bookshelf filled top to bottom with recipe books, stories about Norse Mythology (you never know), and strange science fiction books in top condition.

While Angelica wasn't looking, Arnica plucked off J.G. Ballard's _The Drowned World _and shoved it in her back pocket. She ignored the look Thomas gave her.

"I've got it here." She held up a glass bottle filled with a yellow substance. She offered it to Thomas.

He took it and leaned it one way then the other. "Is this _honey_?" Thomas was mystified.

"This _honey _has some of the most powerful heating properties known to man." Angelica looked slightly offended.

"Sorry." Thomas always thought he had a high pain tolerance, but he was using everything within himself to not stop right here and scratch like there was no tomorrow. "So, AH!" He cut himself off as the itch spread. "Do I just rub this wherever?"

"That's the idea." Angelica smiled. "Better do it before the welts show up." She gave a knowing smile.

"Right on, Angie." Arnica grabbed Thomas' shirt sleeve and they headed out the room before Thomas could question why Angelica seemed to know about the prank. "Thanks."

"No problem," Angelica said as Arnica closed the door behind them.

"Gotta hand it to her," Arnica started as they made their way to the boy's bathroom. "It's a flaw, but she does things without asking for anything in return. She's a cool head."

Thomas had already opened the door. "Have you done the red paint thing before?" She had to have if Angelica knew about it.

"I'll answer that once you tell me about the ruckus last night," was her response.

"And I'll tell you that," Thomas started, eyeing the worn paperback in her pocket, "once you tell me what the book's for."

"Get with the cleaning," Arnica said, pushing him in. "And, it's for Kieran. I expect my answers in due time."

Thomas watched as the door slammed in front of him without Arnica raising a finger. As he dipped his finger in the thick, sticky material. He grabbed a wash towel and turned on the cold water. He thought about how he would tell Chiron and Euterpe about the dream. Then, he thought about how he needed to tell Arnica before she split him open to get to his secret. Then, he thought about Arnica herself.

_Shit, there is something wrong with that girl._

_-break-_

Kieran was reading _Rosemary's Baby_ in the beautiful apricity of a January morning when a conch shell fell from the sky.

It fell a foot away from him causing quite the small explosion. Kieran took his eye off the smoking Strombus to look worriedly at the sky in a desperate hope that nothing would plummet and kill him. After thirty or so seconds he cautiously looked back at the object anticipating (however half-heartedly) that some space invader would walk out and bequeath to him the knowledge or power of a dying planet. If it happened to Hal Jordan, it could happen to him.

In a world where the Greek Gods were alive and kicking, anything could happen.

He dog-eared the page he was on and closed it. Reaching out to the shell, he was taken aback at it's lack of heat. If it fell at hell-he-knows miles per hour, it should be scorching the air surrounding it for several feet, at least.

Convincing himself that nothing was wrong with it and no one would come out and bite his hand, he snatched the strangely orange patterned object and brought it nearer for closer inspection.

"You fell from the sky," he whispered to it. He wondered if it was a lamp and brushed his thumb across the sooty surface. "You fell from the sky in front of _me_. That's gotta count for something."

He held the shell up to his ear and listened. He knew that you didn't turley hear the sound of the ocean in a conch shell- or any shell for that matter; it was all a matter of the surrounding environment's sound resonating with the conch cavity, so what he heard knocked his socks off his sockless feet right off.

He stood up in an instant so quickly he almost fell back down.

He needed to tell Chiron. Hell, even Euterpe would work.

Someone was going to die.

**OK, I'll be honest… this was nothing but filler.**

**Although it's hardly an excuse, I'm in this thing called 'Magnet' at our school which means nothing except we have to do hella work compared to so many other people. Hella work equals no time to live.**

**Esp. AP Environmental Science. Fuck that class.**

**Anyway, Euterpe didn't make an appearance. She's more plot and this was more filler and I couldn't find a way to work it out.**

**To those people who submitted characters that haven't gotten their own spotlight, no fear!**

**And, reviews (good AND bad) would be extremely appreciated. I haven't been updating really frequently, but when I do, I'd like to know your thoughts on it so I can improve (and kudos to those who reviewed. It made my heart smile!)**

**But, yeah, any questions or anything. Fire away. **

**And, I'm not sure if this helps is just a fanfic writer thing, but I listened to Vision Vision by the Loyal Divide and Remember Execute Forget by Nine Leaves and Conquest of Spaces by Woodkid while writing this thing. You folks should listen to them, even if they weren't made in the 60s.**

**Til next time!**


End file.
